Last season was a special one for the Ithaca College softball team. The Bombers captured its first Liberty League title since 2019 and made it all the way to the regional championship in the NCAA Division III Tournament. While most of the roster returns this year, the Bombers have a few new additions, including one player who grew up just 20 minutes away.
Kahlen Cornell is now part of the Bombers’ pitching staff. The Dryden native has made a few relief appearances to help the team get off to a 10-5 start. While it is still early on in the season, Cornell likes what she has seen from the Bombers throughout the bulk of non-conference play.
“I think we have a great team culture that is going to get us through a lot of the different challenges we will face throughout the season, so I think that’s super important,” Cornell said. “We spend a lot of time with each other on and off the field. We all have a great relationship that I think will push us through.”
Some of those challenges came during their spring trip to Florida back in mid-March for THE Spring Games. Although they went 3-5 during that stretch, three of those defeats came against nationally-ranked opponents. The Bombers have clearly learned a lot from that experience, winning five straight games since returning to New York.
“I think we’ve grown a lot in our communication and how we support each other on and off the field,” Cornell said. “I think that changes throughout each game and who needs what, and I think that we’ve kind of found that [dynamic].”
It’s been quite the journey for Cornell since she graduated from Dryden in 2023. One month before she went off to Georgian Court University, a Division II school in New Jersey, her would-be head coach Nicole Degenhardt left the program to take the same position at Montclair State University, also located in New Jersey. While many of her teammates transferred, Cornell opted to honor her commitment and stay with the Lions for her freshman year.
But a third of the way into the season, Cornell suffered a shoulder injury that would later require surgery. As she recovered, Cornell realized that Georgian Court was no longer the best fit and decided to transfer. That’s when Ithaca College came calling, and a homecoming of sorts soon followed.
“At the point in my recruiting process, I wasn’t 100% sure where I would be once I made a full recovery,” Cornell said. “But the coaching staff at Ithaca, [head] coach [Kelly] Robichaud and [assistant] coach Payton [Cutting], they really just took me in with open arms and they have a great family culture here that I was super excited to be a part of.”
Cornell was part of the team last year as a student manager while she continued to recover. Cornell got front-row viewing to one of the top pitchers in the nation in Anna Cornell (no relation), who earned All-American honors and set the program record for career strikeouts.
“I think it really just inspired me to get myself into physical condition to be able to contribute to the different successes of IC softball,” Cornell said. “[With] Anna graduating, that’s obviously huge shoes to fill for our staff, but I think that we’re trying our best to do that, but it was also super great to be a part of her legacy a little bit.”
Kahlen Cornell was a standout pitcher in her own right at Dryden. She tallied over 300 career strikeouts, was the IAC North Large Division MVP her junior year and earned an All-State selection her senior year. Although her college career has had some bumps in the road, that journey has put things into perspective for Cornell for the better.
“I think my injury really just proved that not everything can be about softball,” Cornell said. “There’s other aspects of life that you really have to put a lot of time and effort into. I think that showed me that, but it also showed me how much I truly do love softball.”
Cornell and the Bombers have their sights set high this year off the back of an incredible 2025 campaign. Not only do they want to host the Liberty League tournament and repeat as champions, they also want to host NCAA regionals once again and make it to super regionals and beyond.
The Bombers have the championship pedigree to reach even greater heights this year. They now also have a local talent to boost their pitching staff to make those goals achievable.
“We want to just go as far as we can go, and I think that we have the potential to do that,” Cornell said. “I think that if we hit the ball and we play like good defense and we all work together, that we can be something really good.”
